


En Plein Air

by Precipice



Series: En Plein Air [1]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom
Genre: (Richard seeks inspiration and Wilbur is curious), (straddling the line between artist-muse and painter-model), (tagging both relationship options - & and / - even though the / doesn't really go anywhere), Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24178249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Precipice/pseuds/Precipice
Summary: The scenery, judged by any ordinary aesthetic canon, is more than commonly beautiful; yet there is no influx of artists or summer tourists.~H. P. Lovecraft , "The Dunwich Horror"You know, in ordinary art, there’s all the difference in the world between the vital, breathing things drawn from Nature or models and the artificial truck that commercial small fry reel off in a bare studio by rule.~ H. P. Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model"
Relationships: Richard Pickman & Wilbur Whateley, Richard Pickman/Wilbur Whateley
Series: En Plein Air [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768618
Comments: 24
Kudos: 19





	1. October 5, 1924

The automobile seemed to crawl along the narrow, ill-maintained road – not in the least because its driver was not in a hurry to leave this part of north-central Massachusetts, but rather because he did not dare risk the machine breaking down and leaving him and his passenger stranded in the middle of nowhere. Now, by merely looking at the map and converting the distances from inches to miles, one might think the driver uncharitable – after all, the area surrounding this particular road could hardly be called ‘remote’, as the distance to the nearest town of Aylesbury could be easily overcome by a mere hour of careful driving. However, as any traveler worth their salt could confirm, it was one thing to stare at a map, at the thin lines charting the roads and the small dots representing the towns, and it was another thing entirely to face the reality beyond the paper and the ink. 

“I swear, every time we have to cross a bridge, the part of me that paid attention during Sunday school wakes up and starts praying,” the driver muttered as soon as they reached the other end of the precarious structure. 

His companion and almost-friend laughed, but it was a vacant bark of a sound – less of a feeling, more of a filling. The motor’s rumble would have drowned it with ease, were the driver not listening with far more care than the other man deserved.

“You mean to tell me that the believer in you didn’t die on the racks they call pews? Thurber, you astound me!”

Thurber merely rolled his eyes, ignoring the obvious bait. He was not going to waste his righteous anger on topics other than the one at hand.

“The only surprise here, Pickman, would be if any single one of these bridges was built in this century… And did you notice the material they used?” 

“You know I didn’t,” Pickman drawled and moved to stretch his legs as far as the space inside the vehicle permitted.

“It’s wood! Rotten wood! And I mean literally!” Thurber shuddered as they drove over yet another primitive bridge. “For heaven’s sake, this is the Miskatonic, not a moat.”

Pickman hummed.

“Perhaps the Miskatonic _is_ a moat,” he remarked, though he seemed to be talking more to himself rather than to his companion.

“What?” Thurber did not take his eyes off the road, but his head turned ever so slightly and quickly to nod in the other man’s general direction.

Pickman sighed and rubbed his face with both hands, kneading skin and muscle until it hurt, as if suddenly regretting his words. Still, he elaborated:

“Well, you know how the saying goes… _My home is my castle,_ and so on, and so forth.” 

“What are you suggesting? That whoever built those bridges…”

“… did not care much about them being a permanent feature? Who knows? After all, Dunwich is said to be a strange country.”

***

Richard Pickman was neither spontaneous with his impressions nor generous with his expressions. Therefore, he spent the Aylesbury-Dunwich part of the journey in silence – this part of Massachusetts was practically unknown to him, and he wished to soak up as much as he could, as soon as he could. 

The wide fields would quickly give way to thick forests, as if they merely rented the space. Autumn had just begun gilding the vegetation, adding a touch of warm yellow to the green hues. Th e innocuously babbling Miskatonic River had carved steep ravines through slimy soil and brittle rock, over which almost primitive bridges stretched like hesitant arms. Above all loomed the rounded peaks of distant hills. 

Pickman counted the bridges (six) as the automobile drove over their creaking length; he counted the dilapidated farmhouses (a few) and their lonely inhabitants (even fewer); he counted the sights that could possibly be of use to him. 

A crumbling stone fence, its bone-white shape peeking through the shrubbery and hinting at a garden long-disappeared beneath the onslaught of many seasons. 

Ancient trees, covered with pale moss, patient owls biding their time in the hollow trunks. 

Tangled grasses, dotted with crumpled blooms, small reptiles and rodents lurking beneath the warm shadows. 

The ruins of an abandoned house – the roof collapsed, the windows broken, the sheds empty, the lands overgrown with weeds.

The Miskatonic, glistening beneath the weak October sun like a twisting snake and probably just as cool to the touch. 

The smooth curve of a ridge, aptly named Round Mountain according to the map, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the back of some enormous creature from some past or future aeon – a creature that was not dead, but merely asleep. 

_So this is what the world will look like, once mankind disappears,_ Pickman thought. 

The notion sent a shiver down his spine, but it was not an unpleasant thrill.

***

Pickman had first heard of Dunwich during a gathering of Boston’s so-called _bohème_ back in March. The cause (or rather, the official excuse) was his latest (and, after the critics tore him to pieces in the evening paper, his last) exhibition on Newbury Street. A man he had met earlier that evening, an almost aggressively elegant fellow by the name of George Bishop, had been ever so kind as to describe in almost lurid detail the overall state of decay of his hometown – from the buildings to the customs. 

“Goya?” he had laughed – an airy, lilting laughter; Pickman suspected Mr. Fancy-pants had been practicing at home. “Try Dunwich. Goya was, at the very least, aware that he was having a nightmare; Dunwich revels in it, as if it were a pleasant afternoon.”

“I beg your pardon,” Thurber, who had made that (too flattering, in Pickman's humble opinion) comparison, looked embarrassed and sounded angry, “I don't think I've ever heard of this... Dunwich... person. Maybe you could...”

“A person?” Again with the artificial laughter. “No, a person. A perversion, more like. A sad little town, filled with sad little people, who happen to look exactly like the unfortunate creatures that fill these paintings, whoever those might be.”

_Those_ had been several nameless corpses from the morgue, all on the brink of decay; Pickman had dressed them up in fineries – his own mother's silk and pearls for the ladies, his own father's velvet and gold for the gentlemen – before doing some of the quickest studies in his life, since the mortician could only guarantee the painter's freedom of action for the duration of his shift.

Much to Thurber's indignation, the painter had invited Bishop over for a drink after the event. This had served a triple purpose – to get drunk, first and foremost, but also to rub Thurber's nose in and to gather more information on Dunwich.

Pickman had suspected that this George Bishop was either too callous for a caress or, for some strange reason, wished to present himself as such. However, there had been something about Bishop’s tales of mouldering buildings and decaying families that had struck a nerve – or rather, a heartstring – with the painter. He had almost immediately recalled a government survey that had sent the reporters in a tizzy some ten years ago, in the dawn of the Great War – several local newspapers, including the otherwise respectable _Boston Globe_ and _Arkham Advertiser_ , had practically raced to print sensational articles that described shocking levels of degeneracy and intriguing examples of deformity in certain backwater communities, Dunwich among them. 

The infuriating lack of photographs had almost sent Pickman running over there with his camera, but the following week had brought torrential rains and his enlistment order, both of which had washed his plans down the proverbial drain.

***

A covered bridge was Thurber’s last trial and Pickman’s last curiosity before Dunwich. As the automobile entered the dark tunnel, Pickman imagined himself passing through a gate that would lead him into a different world – a world worthy of his brush and his paint.

They found themselves on what was supposed to pass for a main street – a badly cobbled strip of road, surrounded by ill-kept buildings and haunted by a peculiar smell. The weak sun had already descended beneath the Round Mountain’s rounded back, casting its enormous shadow over the village. Most of the houses appeared to be currently uninhabited, if not wholly deserted; not one of them – and Pickman was ready to bet actual paper money on this – was built before the 1800s. The broken steeple of a lone church peeked above the gambrel roofs. Pickman found himself unable to take his eyes off it as he got out of the vehicle.

“Fancy-pants Bishop told me that the church has been repurposed as a general store,” he remarked in Thurber’s general direction. “Let’s go check.”

Thurber took his time locking the doors.

“I can drive us there, if you want,” he offered, though he seemed to know already what his companion’s answer would be. 

“I don’t.”

***

With every step he took, Pickman grew more and more certain that he had come to the right place – and at the right time, too. The village itself could probably outlive the Apocalypse, but the true soul of Dunwich would be gone in less than a couple of generations – the houses, or rather the memories they still held in their lines and angles, would sooner or later degrade into a nondescript pile of mould and rot. 

Normally, Pickman did not mind painting dry bones, but he had come here for wet blood.

The church-turned-shop – _Osborn_ , a faded signboard read – was a peculiar combination of a poorly stocked bazaar and a low-class saloon. The first comparison was born from the curious arrangement of the meager merchandise (although Pickman could easily guess that there was a method to the madness – the modified pews and former bookcases were few, but full; the goods on display were free of dust and cobwebs; the still-boxed wares were arranged in even rows and solid columns; and finally, the cash register was quite deliberately placed where the pulpit must have stood); the second impression was due to the inordinate number of chairs gathered around the blackened stove (although the noticeable variety of the pieces of furniture hinted that they had been brought here from different households all over the village). 

Most of the chairs were, in fact, currently occupied. The layer of grime covering the tall windows was thick enough as to make curtains unnecessary, but the feeble light which still managed to trickle through the filthy glass allowed Pickman to make out the figures and faces of the local loungers.

Some looked ancient enough to be his grandfather. Others looked foul enough to be his father. All looked peculiar enough to be his friends. 

Pickman had enough presence of mind to remember to take off his beret. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he approached what he hoped were his future neighbors.

“Good day, gentlemen! You wouldn’t happen to know where a fellow such as myself might be able to find lodging here, now would you?” 

***

Several bottles of store-bought cider later, Thurber found himself and Pickman sitting on a pair of sturdy-looking crates that Osborn had generously allowed them to use as makeshift chairs. Thurber would have preferred to remain standing or wait outside until Pickman reached an agreement or, ideally, received a rejection. After all, one did not simply show up, unexpected and unknown, and demand a room for themselves in a small and poor village where the people were reticent at best and backward at worst.

Unfortunately for Thurber’s sensibilities, Pickman could probably endear himself to a rattlesnake, should he desire to paint its scales from up close.

“S‘ow long’re we talkin’ ‘bout?” Osborn inquired as he went around collecting the empty bottles. “A week? A fortnight?”

The store’s proprietor looked like a creature who shared an ancestor with the eels rather than with the primates. He was greasy-skinned and greasy-haired, but otherwise surprisingly well-groomed – his clothes, albeit plain and faded, were devoid of stains, tears and patches; his face was clean-shaven and its expression was alert and shrewd; he smelled faintly of something detergent-like, neither pleasant nor repulsive.

“At least a month, I think,” Pickman said after a moment of silent calculation. “Depends on the weather, I guess.”

“October’s fine, usually,” one of the loungers – Silas Bishop, third cousin of Fancy-pants Bishop – chipped in. He looked less like a human being and more like a scarecrow, which made his impeccable pronunciation all the more surprising – Thurber had almost expected to hear a bird’s caw when the man first opened his mouth. “Not much sun, but not much rain, either.” 

“Sounds perfect,” Pickman rubbed his hands together, as if he could not wait to set up his easel – and knowing the painter, Thurber marveled at his practicality. “I also require regular feeding.” The loungers chuckled at his choice of words. “Breakfast and dinner should be enough. And I’m not picky – whatever my hosts are having, I’ll have as well.”

The loungers began a slow and silent exchange of looks – like a flock of far-too-polite vultures. _You go first, my dear fellow._ The change was almost as frightening as it was natural – the sullen peasants transforming into cunning predators. 

A thought flashed through Thurber's already stressed mind, illuminating a terrible notion – if Dunwich were truly as foul a place as George Bishop had claimed, dripping with violence and swollen with incest, why no action had been taken by the authorities? 

Unless... the only things that escaped this valley were the rumors... and the occasional spoiled little boy.

***

Thurber drove the automobile to Pickman’s new home with an odd sense of calmness. The prospect of leaving the painter in the company of any of the loungers in Osborn’s store had bothered him more than he cared to admit – especially to Pickman, who would have simply laughed and called him a worry-wart. In the end, however, the impromptu bidding war had been won by one Mamie Bishop, a short and stout woman with a shrill voice and a sharp tongue, who had entered the store with a shopping list and who had left its premises with a tenant. 

Ms. Bishop, to whom Pickman had generously offered the seat next to the driver while he shared the backseat with her purchases, turned out of be a good navigator and an even better cicerone – she informed Thurber where to turn well in advance, while regaling Pickman with stories (or rather, gossip) about the more notable houses (or rather, their owners) as they drove past the impressive, if neglected, facades.

“You’re a rather large family, aren’t you?” Pickman remarked after the third Bishop house. 

“Well, there’s Bishops an’ then there’s Bishops, ef ye know what I mean,” was the woman’s surprisingly tactful reply. 

“I met a George Bishop in Boston. It was he who told me about Dunwich.”

“Ah. Stuffy Seth's nephew. 'E raised 'im, y'know – raised 'im rotten, ef ye ask me. Now li'l Georgie's out there, doin' who knows what with who knows who, an' only writin' when 'e needs more money... Poor cousin Seth...” An exagerrated sigh. ”An’ what did ‘e tell ye ‘bout us?”

Pickman's glee was almost palpable as he informed Ms. Bishop of everything he knew regarding _l i'l __Georgie_ 's personal business.

“That being said, he was quite adamant that Dunwich was just the place for a painter such as myself.” 

***

Ms. Bishop lived with her (common-law, as she had informed them immediately, lest someone else raced her to it) husband, a man named Earl Sawyer, in a farm just outside of Dunwich – its fields were bordered by the fences of the endmost houses. 

Being a city dweller through and through, Thurber could hardly call himself an expert on these matters, but the farm seemed to be doing quite well – the buildings were old but neat, the garden was small but trim, and there were a lot of cows. Today or yesterday had been laundry day in the Sawyer-Bishop household – the bed sheets on the single wash-line gleamed like snow. There were even pots of flowers on the window sills – marigolds, as far as Thurber could see from where he parked the vehicle.

Pickman assured his driver and his hosts that he did not need any help with his luggage, which consisted of a small bag (for his clothes), two big boxes (for his tools and materials), and a light easel. He had been unreasonably optimistic about the trip, and luck had proven Pickman right and Thurber wrong. And now, Thurber could do nothing but watch the man remove his belongings one by one from the trunk of the automobile, feeling more and more useless with every item. 

Once the trunk was empty, they shook hands – the painter and his admirer.

“The first of November,” Pickman reminded him as he squeezed Thurber’s fingers goodbye. “Be here or disappear.”

“If there should be any need,” Thurber peered into his almost-friend’s eyes in an effort to make an impression, “any need whatsoever – do not hesitate to call. I saw a phone back at the store…”

Pickman smiled – a smile like an open secret of which Thurber, however, was not apprised. His teeth glinted with the spit of a hungry man about to begin his feast.

“My only need here should be the need of a proper muse… though something – my heart, my gut, my thumbs – tells me that it’s nearer than I know and that I’ll find it sooner than I hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if pickman went to dunwich to paint?
> 
> *almost 20 000 words later*
> 
> ah, so this is what would happen


	2. October 5, 1924 - October 6, 1924

It had taken Pickman the duration of precisely one dinner to realize that this whole tenant business was something quite new to his hosts.

Mr. Sawyer, who probably spent more time among cattle than people, resembled his charges in both appearance and demeanor – he would stare kindly at Pickman while chewing the simple meal slowly and continuously, hunched over his plate like a cow over its manger. Ms. Bishop, on the other hand, was as chatty as a magpie, and her head seemed to be as full of curious information about Dunwich as a magpie’s nest was full of sparkling garbage and the occasional precious egg. Pickman would ask the woman one question, and she would give him the answers to a dozen other questions he might have had.

Such as, what the people of Dunwich did for a living, other than farm?

Turned out, not much.

The closest thing Dunwich had ever seen that resembled a factory was a water-mill, and even that had not lasted too long. The relative proximity of a neighbor such as Aylesbury assured easy access to and steady supply of whatever manufactured goods were needed. As for the rest… they got by, somehow. They had been getting by for centuries, almost. There was a doctor in Aylesbury who could be bothered to visit Dunwich once a week and also for emergencies. There was a school, run by the mayor’s sister-in-law to the best of her ability. There was a church, but religion was not a necessity – unlike canned beans, hence Osborn’s general store.

And in any case, there was not much to be done about agriculture, either. Too much work and too little money – for everyone involved. Most of the cultivable land belonged to certain lines of the old families, who hired their less fortunate countrymen to work the fields and tend the livestock. In fact, Mamie Bishop and Earl Sawyer’s initial arrangement had been that of a farm-owner and a farm-hand – since she belonged to one of the _better_ branches of the Bishop family tree, the woman had inherited the farmstead from her father, but she had refused to marry even when the other branches put aside their differences in order to prevent her from choosing a husband and producing children whose name was not Bishop. In a way, her relatives had been successful, but Mamie swore they would come to regret it – she intended to die without leaving a will… or in other words, an easy way to decide who was to inherit the farm.

Her voice filled the spacious kitchen (that also doubled as a dining room) the way a spoon filled a mouth – Ms. Bishop’s chatter seemed to be as integral part of the household’s evening routine as the dying fire’s crackle in the cooking stove or the dull click-clack of old cutlery on cheap plates. If Mr. Sawyer wished to edge in a word, he waited for his wife’s mouth to be full.

Neither Mr. Sawyer nor Ms. Bishop thought about asking the stranger sitting at their table anything about himself. They only knew what he had told them – his name, his occupation and the purpose of his visit.

For some reason, that was enough for them.

For some reason, Pickman was grateful for it.

***

Later that evening, Ms. Bishop had given him a lit candle and a promise to wake him up whenever she and Mr. Sawyer began their day. Pickman was to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms on the upper floor, where the floorboards creaked traitorously at every step.

It was a small room, equipped with a narrow bed and a tiny fireplace that had not been lit in months, if not years. The only window did not have any flowers on its sill.

***

Contrary to his own expectations, Pickman slept like an innocent – whether it was due to the silence of the country night or to some peculiarity of the mountain air, he did not know. He rose with the sun and watched its slow ascent over the hills, elbows resting on the flowerless window sill, as he waited for Ms. Bishop to knock on the door.

There was neither coffee nor tea for breakfast, but Pickman refreshed himself just fine with a handful of cold water and a bowl of warm milk. Mr. Sawyer nodded in response to his greeting and smiled at the painter’s flushed face.

“Ef ye need hot water…” the farmer began, motioning towards his own cheeks, but Pickman shook his head.

“Thank you, but I don’t shave.” His beard was nothing to write home about, but he suspected that his face looked plain without it. “Maybe later this evening I’ll have a wash – I’ll be going about the village today.”

“Gonna paint the houses?” Humor flashed in Mr. Sawyer’s eyes. “Not gonna lie, most o’em could use a fresh coat o’ paint.”

Pickman had to laugh.

***

The dirt road wound among the sloping fields, among tall grasses and low shrubs. Pickman trod on with the brisk step of a man wearing comfortable shoes and carrying a light satchel. The day promised to be a good one – the sun was warm, the wind was gentle, the skies were clear. Curious birds chirped above his head and shy lizards scattered before his feet. He would reach a crossroad every now and then, where the road forked towards other farms, and he would notice pale walls in the distance and thin herds among the grass.

The Miskatonic gargled in the nearby ravine, among crooked trees and strewn rocks – the map claimed that there were waterfalls nearby and Ms. Bishop had confirmed that the water-mill had used their power during its short run. According to her, the mill had been built around the time of her grandmother's birth and abandoned just before that same woman’s early death. Pickman had calculated that the construction had most likely been completed in the beginning of the last century, if not even earlier, and wondered if there was anything left of it.

The wild hills held the painter’s gaze like cupped palms might hold a sip of water. Their slopes were covered with forests, but the peaks remained bare. He wondered if the ascent was easy, and if yes – whether the sights from above were worth the effort.

***

As small as the village was, it took Pickman the better half of the day to walk the length and breadth of Dunwich and map its streets in his sketchbook. He marked the more interesting spots with a green pencil – a curious wrought iron fence here, its blood-red rust startling among the gloss-green boxwood shrubs; a broken window there, some enterprising spider’s web stretched between the jagged pieces of glass still embedded in the rotting frame; several houses with collapsed roofs and saplings growing from what used to be carpeted floors; the broken steeple of the former church, of course, and the sign of the current store.

There were very few people out and about, and most of them were running errands – a woman with a heavy basket and an empty look in her eyes, a couple of harsh-faced men fixing a horse-drawn cart and discussing a recent funeral (“… buried ‘im in Col’ Spring Glen, near the rock falls. Sally Sawyer sez, ‘er li’l Chauncey saw ‘em go…”), a shabby goatherd with his meager flock. The only exceptions were several children with pale faces and bony limbs, who were playing with marbles in the middle of the dusty street. They stopped upon noticing the approaching stranger – not so much to let him pass by without disturbance, but rather to gawk at him without distraction.

While he was not nearly as well-travelled as some of his friends were, Pickman’s rambles had often brought him face to face with abject poverty, as well as with the garden of assorted evils that flourished in its wake – blinding ignorance and crippling necessity, toxic apathy and bitter spite. He had seen such gardens in Boston's North End and in Paris' Cité Lesage-Bullorde. However, he had never seen them sprawl into a forest – not until he came to Dunwich.

***

The store was emptier and darker than it had been the previous day, but Pickman spotted Silas Bishop’s distinct silhouette among the loungers and responded to his wave with a nod and a smile. There were two other people sitting around the stove, but he did not recognize them.

Osborn let the painter pick his own groceries from the shelves – a box of cheese crackers and a bag of ginger wafers – and rang them up without unnecessary small-talk. Pickman figured that he should buy something from the store’s owner if he wanted to cozy up to his companions. Yesterday, the cider had been a good idea; today, the ginger wafers would have to do. His second canteen of water was nearly full, anyway, so he decided against spending money on drinks.

Silas Bishop’s lips were so thin, his mouth looked like a slit. A rolled-up newspaper poked out of his coat’s pocket. He shook his round head when Pickman offered him a wafer and gestured towards an empty chair when asked if it was okay for the painter to join them. He waited for the other two men to refuse their wafers before he made the introductions:

“This is the man I’ve been telling you about. Richard Packman…”

“Pickman.”

“… a painter from Boston.”

One of the men, white-haired and gray-bearded, whistled. He looked old enough to have grandchildren and bright enough to teach them the multiplication table.

“Ye’ve come a lon’ way. Didja run outta trees in the big city?”

Pickman laughed – a genuinely happy laughter, which seemed to catch the old man off guard.

“You have no idea. If I want to see a tree surrounded with grass instead of cement, I have to go to the park; and if I want to go to the park, I have to wear my Sunday best – or else the ladies will sic their perfumed dogs on me.”

The old man could only blink. His wrinkles contorted into something indescribable as he turned to Silas and asked:

“Do they really?”

“Do they really what, Zeb?”

“Perfume their dogs?”

“Georgie tells me they take them to the barber’s, so why not?”

Zeb made a disgusted sound. Pickman offered him a ginger wafer again, and this time he accepted it.

“Zebulon Whateley,” he gave his name instead of thanks. “Ye’re stayin’ fer a month?”

“Until November 1st, yes.”

“With Earl an’ Mamie?”

“Yes.”

“D’ye like it 'ere?”

“Very much.”

“Huh.”

The third man, who had so far been content to watch and listen, decided to join the conversation just as Silas Bishop opened his mouth. He appeared to be about Pickman’s age, with straw-blond hair and berry-red face.

“Ye do portraits, mister?”

Pickman, who had been thinking of ways to steer the conversation to this exact point, was prepared to kiss the man’s ruddy cheeks.

“Yes, I do.”

“Ye any good at it?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Ye gonna paint us?”

In all probability, the man was merely joking, but Pickman jumped at the opportunity all the same – this particular specimen was nothing special, but if he could arrange for the sitting to take place in the store… where people came and went and heard and talked…

“If you don’t mind sitting very still for half a day.” Pickman considered the amount of paint he had brought from Boston. “Or better yet, I can sketch you with a pencil – that should take me less than fifteen minutes.”

The younger man seemed to actually consider the offer, but Zebulon Whateley decided to intervene:

“Why not ‘ave ‘im sketch yer wife an’ daughters too, while yer at it? The man didn’t drag ‘imself all the way from Boston jus’ to draw yer ugly mug…”

Pickman waved his hands to reject the notion and by doing so almost spilled his wafers on the floor.

“No! No, that’s exactly what I came here for!”

Zebulon's bushy eyebrows shot up:

“To draw Elmer Frye’s ugly mug?"

Silas Bishop nudged the old man’s shoulder:

“Be nice, Zeb.”

***

To his quiet surprise, Pickman genuinely enjoyed the time spent with these three.

There was a gentle air to Silas – not _genteel_ , despite the family name – that revealed him as the black sheep of the family; the meek should not inherit the earth, at least not here in Dunwich, it seemed, because Silas lived on his younger cousin Seth's farm despite being the oldest son of the oldest son. Zebulon was just the type of old man Pickman loved to listen – not for his wisdom, of course, but for his memory. He was the only denizen of Dunwich to have fought in the Civil War and returned to tell the tale. And catching Elmer in the store was pure luck – he was 'the first to rise and the last to sleep' in all of Dunwich; nobody said it aloud, but Pickman heard it all the same – the man was very poor, even by the village's low standards.

Pickman spent about an hour with his new acquaintances, during which time he arranged to visit Frye’s farm on Sunday, October 11th, and do individual sketch portraits of his entire family – not exactly an easy task, since the Frye family consisted of Elmer himself, his wife, his wife’s sister, his mother-in-law, four daughters and two sons. Pickman staunchly refused to take the farmer’s money, so Elmer promised that there would be roasted chicken and apple pie for lunch.

When he extended a similar offer to the the rest, Silas laughed and Zebulon glared, while Osborn shrugged noncommittally. Oh well. Pickman did not discourage easily – at worst, he would simply visit the store every day until he memorized their peculiar faces well enough to be able to recreate them later, either under the shade of some lonely tree or in the privacy of his rented room.

***

The walk through the fields seemed to take less time, now that Pickman knew the land a little better than he had earlier today, when he first set out for Dunwich. Still, he dragged his feet – not from exhaustion, but from reluctance. He did not want to have a roof over his head – at least, not yet.

The sky pulsed with a thousand shades of blue – from the pale turquoise of the west, where the sun drifted to sleep behind the Round Mountain, to the Delft blue of the east, where the night rose over the nameless hills.  
They did not have a sky like this back in Boston – so wide, so deep, so clear. Pickman wondered if he would miss it when he went back home.

High above his head, Venus winked at the painter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes from yours truly, re: this chapter and the previous one:  
> \- I've taken certain liberties with the geography, but I did try to remain faithful to the descriptions in TDH;  
> \- all characters in the story are canon, except for George "Fancy-pants" Bishop (so have fun with knowing what's going to happen to them in about four years);  
> \- oh, also most of Pickman's family - those characters are mine too;  
> \- my third most favorite thing about writing this fic was coming up with the villagers' personalities and appearances;  
> \- my second most favorite thing was drawing on my personal experiences as a resident of a poor yet beautiful area.


	3. October 7, 1924 - October 10, 1924

For a man whose life was completely dedicated to artistic endeavors and occult interests, Pickman actually enjoyed routine.

He would schedule his day, plan his week, even map out the upcoming season, all with the same careful consideration he gave to an empty canvas. He did not keep a diary or anything of the sort — in fact, he could not be bothered to check his watch or glance at a calendar unless the world demanded it of him — but he had the discipline of an athlete and the temperament of a scientist, both of which helped him achieve some semblance of control over the whirlwind of ideas and inspirations that thundered in his skull.

Life in Dunwich was slow, much in the same way the blood dripping from a mortal wound was slow, but Pickman put a proverbial mirror to the village’s proverbial mouth, and the glass became cloudy with its dying breath. And since he did not have time to waste, he was quick to come up with a new rhythm for his daily grind.

The days were short and warm, so he would get up at dawn with Mr. Sawyer and Ms. Bishop. The morning walk to Dunwich would give him the opportunity to stretch his muscles and meditate in peace, the scents in the cool air cleansing his lungs and the songs of the early birds caressing his ears. He would spend the better part of the day drawing – with pencil and ink, with pastels and watercolors. He would eat his meager lunch while sitting underneath a tree or walking to the next mark on his map – cheese crackers from Osborn’s store and sour apples from Bishop’s orchard. His sketchbook would fill up quickly with dilapidated facades and gnarled trees. Pickman would use low-quality paper – the kind normally used by butchers to wrap up sausages with – for the rough drafts that preceded the proper pictures. In the afternoon, he would go to the store for snacks and conversation. He had shown Elmer Frye samples of his work (“To let you know what you’ll be roasting that chicken for.”), but otherwise kept his sketchbook to himself. It would expose the exact cause for his fascination with Dunwich much faster than he would like, and Pickman did not want the locals to know that he had come, as one might crudely put it, to gawk and point.

Truth be told, Pickman was rather happy with the work he had done so far – there was a certain stark clarity to it, borderline shocking and almost shameless, which, he guessed, was due to his attention to the details. He had been right to start small, with dead architecture and silent nature. He was especially proud of a sunset he had managed to capture two days after his arrival – he had sketched the silhouettes of the mountain and the village in the morning, and he had added the colors in the evening. It had been worth the skipped bottle of cider. He had even shown the painting to his hosts, and Ms. Bishop had gasped (“Jus’ like ‘em photographs!”) while Mr. Sawyer had studied the picture with the intensity of a true critic before pronouncing it _good_.

And yet, Pickman found himself growing slightly concerned. He had brought enough fabric, wood and nails to make several small canvases, but he was yet to see anything worth the price of the oil paint and the weight of the easel. Sure, he had been in Dunwich for less than a week, but he already knew the village like the back of his palm.

His hope, Pickman was beginning to guess, lay with the villagers.

He could not deny that he had found a variety of interesting faces and – if Mamie Bishop were to be believed – intriguing stories that added more to these people's allure than even the painter's own experience and imagination could. It was a unique challenge, even for someone like him, to translate such vices into simple portraits – especially since the better he got to know his unwitting models, the better he understood their ways of life.

The line between comprehension and compassion was thin – it was supposed to be, Pickman would often muse. Logic and emotion were but the two hands of a bright mind – and only a fool would tie one of their own arms behind their back.

***

Tonight’s fare consisted of potato stew and what Ms. Bishop proudly announced was the first jar of this summer’s batch of peach compote. Pickman had come to sincerely enjoy these meals – not only because he was usually starving by dinner time, but also because the farm was yet to be connected to the electrical grid, so they still used fire for warmth and light. Everyone in the house had their own candle and box of matches – to use whenever deemed necessary – and at dinner they all brought their candlesticks to the table. It made for some lovely light effects that reminded Pickman of the works of Caravaggio which he had observed while in Rome, as well as a certain painting by van Gogh which he had glimpsed in Delft.

Pickman knew Mr. Sawyer to be a silent man, but apparently there was silence and then there was _silence_ , because Ms. Bishop interrupted her usual spiel to demand:

“Earl, what’s wrong?”

Mr. Sawyer did not answer immediately, but when he did, he refused to look up from his plate:

“Yer not gonna like it, Mamie.”

Ms. Bishop glanced at Pickman, who started eating his peaches as fast as he could, eager to leave the couple to their impending argument.

“Not gonna like what, Earl?”

“I sol’ two cows.”

“Which ones?”

“Lisa an’ Betsy.”

“’Ow much?”

The sharpness in Ms. Bishop’s voice dulled a little. Pickman had some passing familiarity with the different cows in the herd, since his hosts often discussed their health and habits during meal times, but they had never mentioned either of these.

Mr. Sawyer reached into his pocket. He put his answer on the table – one, two, three, four coins, heavy and strange and golden.

Ms. Bishop did not gasp. Her eyes did not bulge. She was too angry to be surprised.

Pickman ate faster.

“Ye did business with Weird Whateley? I toldja tha’ I wan’ nothin’ to do with ‘im!”

Mr. Sawyer looked up at that, brow furrowed in confusion and eyes sparkling with indignation.

“Ye speak with ‘is mother.” He was not shouting, but it was evident that he wanted to. “Yer ‘bout th’only one who does.”

“Well, _someone_ ‘as to!” Ms. Bishop, on the other hand, did not hold back. “An’ mebbe, _jus ’ mebbe_, if someone spoke with ‘er or with ‘er ma, all those years ago... mebbe then none o’ us would be saddled with… with ‘er _brat_... ‘ers an’ who knows who else’s!” With every new octave her voice reached, it became clearer and clearer that the woman was furious over matters different from the sale of two cows to someone she did not like.

Pickman muttered a quiet _thanks_ and got up from his chair, picking up his candlestick. Mr. Sawyer stared at him for a moment, as if just remembering that their guest had also been present at the table, before turning his attention back to the fuming woman.

“Oh, come now, Mamie… Y’know Lisa an’ Betsy ain’t gettin’ any younger…”

Stopping at the foot of the creaking staircase, just outside the kitchen, Pickman had an idea. He dropped the candlestick. Its flame went out before it hit the floor. He cursed loudly, just in case, and fumbled in the darkness with his matches.

Ms. Bishop seemed to strain to keep her voice down, with little success.

“So we sell ‘em to that… that… that _brat_?”

Again with that word – _brat_. There was something about the way she said it – or rather, spat it. As if it were blood, but not her own.

Encouraged by his wife’s efforts to compose herself, Mr. Sawyer pressed on:  
“Th’others don't see no reason not to…”

No such luck. Ms. Bishop erupted again:

“Th'other _Whateleys_ , ye mean? They’re ‘bout th’only ones who keep sellin’ to the damned _wizards_!”

***

Pickman spent the hours until dawn in bed, his back propped up by the pillow and his legs crossed at the ankles. He could swear that the dark room was illuminated by the sparks that were surely dancing in his eyes – the sparks of inspiration.

_Wizards!_

His mind was aflame with speculations and fantasies; his great-grandmother’s stories unfolded inside him like a worm-eaten tome, fragile and fragrant with decay. The woman had passed away when Pickman had been a child, but he could still recall the smell of her hair and the sound of her voice. Instead of fairy tales, she had regaled him with her grandmother’s grandmother’s memories of Salem and sorcery and sin. Her words had unlocked something inside the boy’s soul – something that he would have probably been forced to take a proverbial crowbar to, had it not opened at his slightest touch when the time was right.

***

The previous year, Pickman had spent several months in Europe – partly because of his artistic wanderings and partly because of a scandal that had made him undesirable in certain American circles. He had not regretted his voluntary exile in the slightest, as he disliked unnecessary conflicts (and there was a saying, was there not, about absence and fondness?).

The meandering path of his journey had taken him to numerous and various places – bustling cities and quaint villages, universities and marketplaces and cabarets. He had met many curious people during these trips, but the most curious of all had been a couple of men – or, more accurately, a couple of wizards.

The younger one – less of a man and more of a boy, really, as everything about his appearance and manner betrayed the diligent student – had introduced himself as Someone Something Ward; the older one, a suspiciously pale fellow with suspiciously cold hands, had offered the clearly fake name Josef Nadek. Pickman had run into Ward while perusing Nadek's vast collection of occult literature – though admittedly, he had been more interested in reading between the lines and looking at the pictures. The boy had turned out to be a fellow American – practically a neighbor, in fact – from Providence, Rhode Island. Nadek had claimed Prague for his home, but his peculiar accent had betrayed him – or rather, Pickman's keen ear had alerted him. Because if Ward had been too young and too sheltered to notice, the painter was neither.

The observation of their natures – contrasting yet complementary – had offered Pickman a glimpse into the two opposite ends of a peculiar spectrum. On one end – innocent enthusiasm. On the other end – bitter ambition. He wondered if all wizards fell somewhere on this spectrum, and if not – what would such a wizard be like.

***

Pickman strained to hear when his hosts would wake up and begin their day. As soon as he heard the tell-tale groan of their bedroom door’s hinge, he was up and practically running downstairs, with a satchel over his shoulder and a spring in his step.  
He cornered Mr. Sawyer by one of the byres, leading out a pair of almost identical cows with halters made out of rope. If the man was baffled by his approach, his face did not show it. Though perhaps his brow had furrowed upon seeing the city-slicker approach the cattle-sheds after showing little to no interest in any part of the farm work? It was hard to tell, really, what with the hat and the wrinkles…

“Can I come with you?” Pickman had thought – not very long and not too hard – about the best way to approach the matter. “I’ve never been to another farm – other than yours, I mean.” In other words, he was improvising.

Mr. Sawyer stared at him. The second that passed between the parting of his lips and the utterance of his answer lasted longer than Pickman cared to admit, even to himself.

“Not my farm.”

An evasive maneuver. Pickman did not fall for it.

“I can hold one of the ropes if you need me to.” He even reached out, but the other man did not move.

“I’m goin’ to the Hop Yard. On th'other side o’ the village, an’ then some more. Ye sure ye can walk?”

“I’m sure.”

Mr. Sawyer stared at him some more. There was something odd about his hesitation, though Pickman could not put his finger on what exactly struck him as so peculiar. It was almost as if the farmer wanted the painter to come with him, but if that were the case, then why…

“Alright. Ye can come. But no talkin’ while I do my business.”

***

They walked through the fields, through the village, all the way to the northern slopes of the Round Mountain – a slow and silent walk that Pickman tried to pepper with remarks and questions, but to little avail. Mr. Sawyer was entirely too focused on his own feet, as if afraid that he might trip over them.

The dirt road turned into a cobbled street which turned into a beaten track. The ground seemed to rise and swell beneath their feet as the hills grew bigger and closer. Although hidden from his eyes by twisted branches and stubborn leaves, Pickman could hear the nearby river which had christened this part of the valley – Cold Spring Glen, Pickman recalled the name Elmer Frye had given it. The river itself was apparently nameless – just a cold spring, one of the many that hurried up to join the Miskatonic river in her bed; it babbled like a madman as it followed them for quite some distance, or rather as their path followed its course.

The sun had risen hours ago, but the shadows in these parts refused to disperse even as the sky lightened to pale blue. Cold air drifted from the north – winter seemed to wave hello. There were fewer farms here, and they seemed to be doing even worse than the farms in the south – even smaller houses, gardens, herds.

Pickman mentioned this to his host who, to his mild surprise, actually deigned to explain:

“Weak grass. Weak animals.”

“So they have to buy cattle from elsewhere?”

“Yes.”

“Weak offspring?”

“No offspring, usually.”

In an attempt to distract himself from the sudden surge of pity and guilt, Pickman looked around and behind and below and finally above. His eyes immediately took notice of the standing stones. Massive and numerous, they crowned the hill-tops like a string of pearls might crown a skull – peculiar and grim implications of a story that was better left untold.

A decision, almost a solution even, crystallized in his mind at the sight – should nothing better come up by the end of the following week, he would investigate the stones. He would count them, he would study their shapes and their arrangements; he would sketch them and perhaps even paint them, as well as whatever panoramic views would be revealed before his eyes from the hill-tops. Perhaps it was the dead stones and the empty air that held whatever secrets he had been hoping to reveal, rather than the dying village and its poor people.

***

At the very end of the dirt road, straddling the border between the abandoned fields and the untouched wilderness, stood an unexpectedly spacious and not-so-unexpectedly dilapidated farmhouse. Surrounded by rickety sheds and scrawny trees, it could have easily been mistaken for entirely deserted, were it not for meager vegetable patch and the unmistakable sound of wood being chopped.

The building itself was rather picturesquely set against the side of what appeared to be the smallest of a series of blasted hills – the same hills he had admired earlier for their stone wreaths – which merged with the Round Mountain like the knobs of a spine merge with the skull. Pickman wondered aloud if this was the Hop Yard, and Mr. Sawyer nodded a confirmation.

And then there was the odor. Pickman was already used to the valley’s particular scents, but none of them could compare to the veritable miasma that emanated from this particular area. He could practically sense it saturate his clothes and stain his lungs; he attempted to breathe through his mouth, but quickly gave up when his spit began to taste like it.

Mr. Sawyer led the cows and the painter to the barn, which was attached to the far side of the house. By the sound of it, someone seemed to be hard at work there.

As they turned around the corner, they came face-to-back with what was probably the tallest man in all of Dunwich – well over six feet, which was rather impressive from someone who had most likely grown up undernourished or at least underfed. He was chopping wood with the practiced movements of someone who had been doing this for a long time – all life or all morning, or most likely both. He was dressed in typical Dunwich fashion – coarse fabrics and dull colors; that being said, there was something about his attire that struck Pickman as odd, though not as odd as the man’s hair, which was long enough to require twisting into something like a braid.

The man seemed to have sensed their arrival, because he went about this chore until they were standing just outside the flying splinters’ range.

He turned to meet them, and the world seemed to turn as well – turn into something both new and old, both familiar and forgotten. Pickman was reminded – and almost violently so, as if his mind were vomiting on itself – of black figures on red clay, of broken marble among greedy ivy, of the nightmares haunting a deaf man’s villa.

Had it not been for the ratty clothes and the menial chore, he would have easily surpassed every childhood fantasy and every artistic fancy Pickman had ever had.

The man's large dark eyes – too large, too dark – flitted over the painter before settling on the farmer. Mr. Sawyer muttered a greeting as he handed over the ropes and thus the ownership of the animals. The man – the assumed brat, the alleged wizard, the apparent Weird Whateley – reached out and took the ropes with one hand, as the other was still holding the axe.

“No problem with Mamie?” His voice resembled the kind of sound that might come from an ancient well rather than from a human throat.

“No,” the farmer lied.

“An’ who’s this?” The eyes darted back to the painter, and he could swear he had caught a glimpse of his own face reflected in their black depths.

“Fam’ly,” the farmer lied again.

“Doesn't look like ye.” The right hand, which did not hold an axe, tucked a stray lock of hair behind the left ear, drawing the painter's eye to its odd shape – long and narrow.

“Distant fam'ly,” the farmer kept lying.

“Don't think I've seen 'im 'round,” The lower half of the face was covered with a thick beard, but because of the lack of mustache – more likely by nature rather than choice – it created a rather goatish, almost satyresque impression, which was enhanced by the shape of the nose and the fullness of the lips.

“ _Very_ distant fam'ly,” the farmer seemed determined to not stop lying.

Some part of Pickman's mind wondered about Mr. Sawyer's lies and the necessity thereof, but it was only a small corner – the same corner where the painter kept things that he occasionally needed but rarely used, such as caution and mercy.

 _I found you_ , was all Pickman could think. _I found you_ , was all he would say, should someone ask him. _I found you, I found you, I found you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wilbur whateley: *has an axe instead of a skincare routine*
> 
> richard 'quick dick' pickman: *wheezing* i have NEVER wanted to suck a tentacle SO BAD in my entire LIFE


	4. October 14, 1924

Three days passed after Mr. Sawyer’s cattle-selling call – three days, during which Pickman managed to gather the most shocking collection of rumors and legends concerning one Wilbur Whateley and his particular branch of the Whateley family.

To be perfectly honest, he had not expected it to be so easy, and as a result he felt rather overwhelmed – as if a sluice had been opened, and he had been swept away by the sudden flood of information. It began when the normally silent Mr. Sawyer told Pickman everything that he knew during their walk back to the farm, and continued later that evening when Ms. Bishop told the painter everything that _she_ knew, which was at least twice as much as her husband did. The following day – Sunday – was spent with Elmer Frye and his family, who happened to live on the eastern edge of the glen, not too far away from the Whateley farm. The mere mention of their neighbor’s name resulted in a new tidal wave of tales. And on Monday, true to his routine, Pickman went to Osborn’s and left the store with next day's lunch and enough gossip to fill a newspaper, albeit the kind that was printed on yellow paper.

It was rather telling that, despite his own practical knowledge and personal experiences, Pickman could only believe about half of what he had heard, as the other half was simply too ridiculous to be believed.

Another man – a normal man – would have asked himself where the simple curiosity ended and where the monstrous obsession began, but Pickman had never been a normal man. Otherwise, he would not have come to Dunwich to seek the unseemly and to paint the improper.

***

Zebulon Whateley had called it _Indian summer_ – then again, they seemed to call everything Indian up here, including the stone pillars on the hills. Regardless, Pickman was determined to make the most of the current good weather while it lasted.

He was almost a _regular_ at Osborn’s, now, and he could be as nosy as he pleased – when in (what they perceived as) good company, the residents of Dunwich would air each other’s (and sometimes even their own) dirty laundry with a delight that bordered on the perverse. It reminded Pickman of Mamie Bishop’s ready admission to not being married to Earl Sawyer and put Fancy-pants Bishop’s behavior in an entirely new context.

Therefore, Pickman only had to mention the old water-mill and within five minutes he had the complete history of the enterprise, including all the problems it had faced during its short time of usage, as well as clear instructions how to get there.

***

It was a pathetic sight, truly – only the stone foundations remained, as everything else had been torn down by nature or picked apart by need. The massive wheel stood still despite the waterfalls – rust and fallen rocks had killed the mechanism. Moss stained everything with the sort of life that was not supposed to thrive here – green and damp, as opposed to flesh and bone. Even the sunlight seemed broken as it struggled to reach into the ravine – the weeping willows, most likely planted around the water-mill to stabilize the stream bank soil, appeared to strangle every miserable ray of light and every unfortunate gust of wind that got entangled in their branches.

Pickman took his time finding the right spot – he wanted to have a good view of the walls, the wheel and the waterfalls. He also wanted to sit somewhere dry. He found himself perched on one of the flatter boulders that littered the area – most likely pieces from the unfortunate structure, strewn around by the vernal floods... or, perhaps, by lazy scavengers. Pickman thought he could recall at least two buildings in Dunwich that boasted fences made from similar stone.

He sketched the area with the patience and pleasure normally reserved for drinking an expensive bottle of wine. His blood seemed to grow warmer as the day progressed – as if the picturesque sight had lit a fire inside the painter, the sudden spark growing into a proper flame through tender care and sufficient fuel. Pickman found himself enjoying this more than he had thought he would – the shapes, the shades, the silence... Perhaps he needed the solitude, regardless of whether he resided in a busy city or in a blasted village. After all, in the galleries on Newburry Street or around the stove in Osborn's general store, people were people everywhere – they might talk differently, but they still talked, and even the most patient and curious ear could have enough of it. Here, the garbled voices of the waterfalls were the only sounds that reached him in his cocoon of willow branches and cheap paper.

Until they were not.

Pencil poised over paper, he listened in. He could swear he was hearing water splashing – heavy, almost rhythmic.

The noise came from somewhere beyond the willow grove, around the stream bend.

Very carefully, Pickman placed the pencil and the paper on the ground, next to the opened satchel and the discarded beret. Very quietly, he got up and walked over rocks and roots.  
It was rather difficult to simultaneously remain hidden by the tree trunks and to peek from behind them, yet somehow he managed.

In the middle of the river, where the waters ran smooth and deep, stood Wilbur Whateley. His bare back was turned – not that it would have mattered if it were not, because the water reached past his chest, and the hair covered what little could be seen from his body like a veil. He was currently brushing it, long fingers slowly disentangling the long strands.

The waters around the man were murky with depth and dappled with light. Pickman did not mean to survey them, but the hint of movement caught his eyes before his sense of propriety – whatever little was left of it – could avert them.

Something was moving in the water – something long and thick… Either a sunken branch or a brave fish, or so Pickman thought. And then the shape rose to just below the surface – a serpentine shape, grayish-yellow and ringed with purple.

It tore out of him before he could think better of it:

“Hey! Hey, look out!”

Whateley practically threw himself even further into the water, almost submerging himself in it, before he turned around. His dark eyes glared and glittered, but his lips were pressed in a thin line.

“There’s something in the river!” Pickman waved a useless hand at it. “I saw something...”

“Yeah – me!! Ye saw me!!”

The anger in his booming voice might have frightened the painter, had Whateley's behavior matched it. However, he appeared more hysterical than furious as he splashed towards the other shore, where the willows had formed an almost impenetrable wall of branches and leaves.

“No, I mean, there’s something…”

“There’s nothin’!!”

“…like a snake, I think… I saw…”

“Ye saw nothin’!!”

The man receded further into the shadow beneath the willows, until all Pickman could make was the dark shape of his head and – he could swear on his great-grandmother's grave – the bestial glow of his eyes.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“GO AWAY!!”

Something about his voice made Pickman feel awkward and embarrassed and… almost guilty – feelings that he had little experience with. And in any case, the colorful shape which he had spied in the water – whatever it had been – was gone, and even if it still lurked somewhere nearby, he had done his best to warn Whateley about it.

He shouted an apology and left in such a hurry, he only discovered he had forgotten his beret when Ms. Bishop asked him about it later that afternoon.

***

That night was one of the most miserable in Pickman's life, because for the very first time in his life he had to draw not what he wanted, but what he needed.

He paused from time to time, trying to recall Randolph Carter's stories and Harley Warren's studies. He had read the latter with much curiosity and he had listened to the former with much interest; however, brighter than any dream and clearer than any plan, one particular image blazed in his head – the newspaper headline, informing the world of Warren's disappearance.

The memories began to unfurl in Pickman's head like an album – the official testimony, Carter's shell-shocked grief, his own helpless disquiet... the promise he had made to Randolph, and the revolver he had bought to prove to his friend that he meant to keep his word.

Ever since that day, the weapon had never left his reach. He had used it far more frequently than he would have liked, but he had been glad to have it nonetheless. It was almost a part of him now, in the same way a stable cane might be considered a part of an old man.

Pickman tried to remember if Warren had been armed on the night of his death. But then his pencil traced over the sketched curve of a long tail, and all he could see with his memory's eye was the shape in the water.

***

The skies were heavy with clouds that threatened rain and ruin – Ms. Bishop predicted a thunderstorm, but Pickman refused to listen as he put on a waterproof coat and set out to find Wilbur Whateley and clear up some matters.

By the time he reached the Hop Yard ( _Devil's Hop Yard_ , as the older Mrs. Frye corrected him just the other day), there was an awful cramp on his ride side, just below his ribs. He told himself he was trying to race the storm. He most certainly did not hurry because he suspected he might lose the momentum necessary for the proverbial jump he was about to attempt.

Of course, it was not the worsening weather that which had him walking even faster when his nose informed him that the Whateley farm was nearby, and it was not the pain in his legs that which had him from almost laughing in relief when the reason for his journey came out of the house just as he neared the sheds. Whateley must have seen him approach – perhaps he had been sitting by one of the windows on the first floor, as the rest were all boarded up. Pickman watched him descend with the air of someone who had never thrown a screaming fit and would knock your teeth out if you dared to imply otherwise. His hair hung loose around his face and tumbled over his shoulders in long crinkly waves. He was carrying something in his hand, but as far as the painter could tell, it was neither an axe nor a gun.

All in all, a very encouraging welcome.

“Good day!” Pickman attempted to stifle his grin, but to no avail.

“G'day,” Whateley muttered, eyeing his unexpected – or, perhaps, merely unwanted – visitor with a sour expression on his face.

There was something surprisingly boyish about him – was it the sullen pout that had his full lips protrude in an almost endearing manner, or the locked elbows that transformed his clenched fists into a comical rather than threatening sight? He was not wearing a coat of any kind; his sleeves were rolled up, as if he had been working with his hands, but his shirt was otherwise completely buttoned up. It was a very wide shirt, made from something that looked very much like burlap, and it was tucked into a pair of similarly roomy trousers. The clothes added to the overall impression of youth, as their size painted the picture of a younger child who wore his older sibling's clothes but who was yet to truly grow into them – even though said child was actually a tall man with broad shoulders and a thick beard.

“I came here to apologize, again, for yesterday. I promise I was not... peeping... at you.” Pickman grimaced – at the word, not at the lie.

“Fine,” Whateley crossed his arms; somehow, the gesture was both reticent and encouraging.

A strong gust of wind swept through the field from the east, biting at Pickman's ears and pulling on Whateley's hair. The painter regretted not bringing another hat, or at least a scarf. He shivered in his coat. Whateley, on the other hand, seemed unbothered by the sudden chill.

“My name is Richard Pickman. I came here from Boston.”

“Alright?”

“I came here to... I came here to seek that which must be sought.”

Whateley just stared at him. On any other face, the expression would have been sufficiently blank; however, Whateley was blessed – or perhaps cursed – with eyes that deserved to be called 'windows to the soul'. Too much annoyance and confusion, too little curiosity and interest – those were the feelings that Pickman's words managed to evoke.

“Yes, that sounded rather strange....” Pickman attempted a smile – _attempted_ being a key word. “Let me explain. All my life, I've known there is more to this world that most people know. And I've looked for it, and I've caught glimpses of it – of what lies behind and beneath and beyond of what we call reality...”

His words seemed to have quite the opposite effect of what he intended – Whateley's expression grew from merely guarded to downright hostile as his uncertainty turned into suspicion.

Pickman fumbled with his satchel.

“Here, let me just... let me just show you.”

He produced the crumpled fruits of his midnight labor – several sketches of creatures with wings and without faces, creatures that had been described to him and named by one Randolph Carter some years ago, and then described to him again in Osborn's general store mere days ago. Creatures that the local legends claimed one of Wilbur Whateley's direct ancestors had kept as familiars.

The sketches were met with a stare and a snort.

“Ye've been talkin' to Osborn's clientele.”

The accusation was a thinly veiled confession, or Pickman would lick the paper clean. He continued, offering a confession of his own.

“I've also been talking to people who actually know what this is. People who have seen these beasts with their own eyes.”

“Sure they 'ave.”

“It's a nightgaunt from the Dreamlands.”

Pickman felt the first raindrops on his face, one of them almost landing in his left eye, but he did not blink. He could not – not while Whateley was finally looking at him, really looking at him. His curiosity had been flattering, and his apprehension had been crushing, but his attention was both a marble pedestal and a dissection table.

Whateley inhaled, as if he were about to jump.

“Only Dreamers call 'em nightgaunts. Yer a Dreamer?”

The painter shrugged. He could have lied – almost did, in fact – but he felt this was a time to be honest. If he wanted Whateley to bare himself, Pickman would have to bare himself first.

“No. Are you?”

Whateley shook his head, then looked up to the skies. Then he did something unexpected – he whistled. The sound was nothing like Pickman had ever heard, and Pickman had heard many weird sounds. It was the roar of the wind and the scream of a bird and the groan of a horn. It twisted itself into short melody that was somehow both a strange word and a wordless scream.

The clouds thundered in response, their booming voices echoing the tune.

Whateley seemed very pleased with himself, if the light twitch at the corners of his mouth was any indication. He looked back to Pickman, who tried to school his facial expression into something resembling nonchalance. Whateley's second twitch of a smile – this time directed at the painter rather than the sky – told him he looked as smitten as he felt.

“Come back t'morrow ef it doesn't rain.”

“I will.”

“Ye will.”

Wilbur Whateley reached out. Pickman thought he was offering to shake hands, but he was simply returning the lost beret to its owner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Whateley and his familiars, whom I decided were nightgaunts, can be found at number 26 here - http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/poetry/p289.aspx


	5. October 15, 1924

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning - some talk about incest (that did not actually happen). After "Pickman listened carefully, but not too carefully" and before "Pickman waited for Wilbur to uncurl himself".

The following day was as warm and sunny as the previous one had been cold and cloudy. As if to test his resolve, Whateley made him wait until he put Lisa and Betsy out to pasture, then made him walk – over the hills, the ascent difficult and the descent precarious, not speaking to him except for the occasional word of caution, and not even looking at him except for the occasional glance over his shoulder, until they reached the northernmost peak.  
  
Sentinel Hill – a name that did not feature in the map; then again, neither did the entire Devil's Hop Yard, or anything smaller than the Round Mountain.

Pickman wondered if the other hills had individual names as his legs and shoes struggled against steep ground and slimy grass every step of the way. He noted the peculiar smell of the area – similar to the stench emanating from the Whateley farm, but nowhere nearly as overwhelming. They passed by many a standing stone – lonesome ones like hermits and numerous arranged in circles like dancers, carved by strange hands and chipped by countless seasons, taller than a man and shorter than a dog, whole and broken, upright and crooked and fallen. The circle on Sentinel Hill was by far the largest one, consisting of dozens of massive pillars – indeed, they stood just as straight and stable and solid, as if the very sky were propped upon them. And yet, the most remarkable aspect of it was a rather plain rock in its heart, a rock that was about the size and shape of a table.

An altar.  
  
Wilbur Whateley had taken him to a sacred place.  
  
Pickman looked around as politely as he could, even though his hands itched to touch the stones. He strolled around for a bit, peering between the gaps to observe the sight from above – rolling fields and endless forests, sunlit hills and shady valleys, close slopes and distant mountains. Not a sign of human presence as far as the eye could see – no farms and no roads.  
  
If he screamed, the echo would – perhaps – carry his voice all the way to Dunwich... but his body would disappear forever.  
  
Pickman turned to his companion – or rather, his host – who was looking at him almost expectantly. The long walk and the pleasant breeze had turned Whateley's already haphazard braid into a mess and now the flyaway locks danced in the wind. If his face resembled that of a demon, then his hair recalled that of a witch.  
  
As if sensing his thoughts, Whateley asked without preamble:  
  
“Whadd'ye know 'bout me?”  
  
Pickman was taken aback, at first, but quickly pulled himself together.  
  
“Well, your name is Wilbur...”  
  
Wilbur waved an arm, impatiently and rather dismissively.  
  
“Nah... What did they tell ye 'bout me? Sawyer, Bishop, the rest of 'em... 'Cause ye see, I know that ye stay with Mamie. 'Cause she talks to my mom. An' my mom talks to me. An' I know yer no fam'ly to anyone 'ere. 'Cause ef ye were, ye wouldn't be askin' so many questions. But since ye've been askin', I wanna know what answers ye got. 'Bout me, I mean. Not the damned water-mill.”  
  
Pickman felt the words more than he heard them – the deep rumble of Wilbur's voice seemed to roll past his ears and straight into his chest like an avalanche, wiping out everything that stood in its way and burying the remains. The painter took a deep breath to steady himself before he started talking.  
  
He told Wilbur, in the most delicate way he could manage, the gist of it – that his branch of the Whateley family tree had always been rife with wizards, but apparently he was the worst of them; that his mother was notable for her white hair and pink eyes, but his father was a mystery; and that he was, apparently, only ten years old despite looking like a man of thirty.  
  
Pickman decided to skip Wilbur's grandfather – not so much out of respect for the recently deceased (as the man had passed away in the summer), but rather because of the rumors that the Old Wizard, as people called him, had killed his wife and replaced her with their daughter.  
  
He also decided to change the number from eleven to ten, just to see if Wilbur would correct him.  
  
Wilbur did not correct him. In fact, Wilbur did not say or do anything except hum and stare at Pickman for a while, as if he could not decide whether to call him a liar or a naif.  
  
Eventually, he spoke:  
  
“An' d'ye believe any o' this?”  
  
Pickman thought about it – really thought about it. About what he had to say, but also about what he wanted to say. It was not often that the two did not coincide.  
  
“I only believe in that which I can paint.”  
  
Wilbur blinked – once, twice. He cocked his head to the side.  
  
“D'ye wanna sit down, mebbe?”  
  
They found a dry patch of grass on the eastern side of the hill. If they happened to sit a bit too close to each other for two people who were practically strangers, neither of them felt the need to do something about it.  
  
Pickman let Wilbur poke at him at first, at least until he figured out what the wizard wanted to know. The painter began unwinding the long thread of his story as he recalled his journey through the labyrinth of dreams and nightmares. He spoke of the creatures known to him as ghouls, about how he managed to find them and befriend them. He spoke of Boston and Paris and London – and of what lay beneath the shadows and stones of these great cities.  
  
“They didn't trust me one bit, at first; but I was clever and persistent... which in their eyes surely came across as dumb and stubborn. Doesn't matter, really – I have no regrets. Every night spent in their company is worth a year spent in the presence of anyone else... Well, almost anyone else.”  
  
He spoke of the Dreamers he knew and their tales of the Dreamlands. He spoke of his desire to go there one day and paint what he sees instead of what he hears.  
  
“I don't need a palace or a kingdom. I just want some paper and a good pencil, maybe even some watercolors and a couple of brushes.”  
  
Wilbur did not ask many questions, but he seemed to know what Pickman was talking about – in fact, he even seemed to understand what Pickman meant by it. The look in his eyes was patient, almost gentle, but his posture revealed avid interest.  
  
Pickman wondered if Wilbur had ever left the village.  
  
“So... ef ye wanna paint the Dreamlands, why come to Dunwich, of all the places in the Wakin' World?”  
  
He had not. But he probably wanted to.  
  
Pickman considered his options and decided to tell the truth – not the facts as he knew them, but rather the reality as it unfolded before him.  
  
“I came here for you.”  
  
Wilbur snorted.  
  
“Ye didn't even know I existed till last week.”  
  
Pickman almost regretted being sincere – the key word here being _almost_. He pressed on – mostly because the box was already open, so he might as well empty it on the cold ground.  
  
“I was looking for you before I even knew I could actually find you.”  
  
Wilbur rolled his eyes. However, the conversation clearly entertained him, because there was that quirk of a smile again.  
  
“An' why were ye lookin' fer me?”  
  
Pickman did not know if he wanted to wipe that smirk off Wilbur's face or stretch it into a proper grin. He practically threw the next words at him, hoping to startle the wizard:  
  
“I am drawn to you.”  
  
Wilbur seemed to catch the words, twirl them in his head, consider their weight.  
  
“ _Drawn_ , huh?”  
  
***  
  
The pencil danced over the page, marking the overall shape of his face and the proportions of his features, while Wilbur leafed through the old sketchbook with careful fingers. Pickman was glad he had remembered to take a new one, and not just because he was running out of free space.

Wilbur Whateley did not belong with the rest of Dunwich – neither in life nor on paper.  
  
“Yer good,” he declared, eventually.  
  
“I know.” Pickman glanced over to his old works to see which one had been the final drop.  
  
The water-mill, colored with pastels. Pickman was especially pleased with how he had recreated the water pouring over the dead wheel.  
  
Wilbur had probably expected to find sketches of himself – with the axe in his hand or in the river without his clothes.  
  
“I wanna trust ye.”  
  
“I want you to trust me too.”  
  
Those sketches were on the bottom of the satchel, folded on the long side twice so that they would take as little space as possible... and also to prevent Pickman from taking them out by accident while rummaging. He would rather eat them before he let anyone see them. He had drawn them in his rented room, just before it got too dark to see without a candle, and his hand had begun shaking just as the lines on the paper began to achieve some semblance of similarity to the picture in his brain. The sunset and his own body had forced him to stop; he had barely managed to compose himself in time for dinner.  
  
Wilbur closed the sketchbook and placed it on top of the satchel.  
  
“Not sure ef I can...”  
  
The pencil stopped its scratching on the paper. Pickman looked up from the portrait and into the model's eyes.  
  
“How about this – I will trust _you_ , and you will trust _me_ , and we will trust _each other_.”  
  
And without waiting for the reply, he began.  
  
The painter told the wizard the story of a little boy who had drawn constantly, almost obsessively – in the margins of his books, across the walls of his room, even on his own clothes.  
  
“I found that the best way to express myself was through art. Because when I said that the corpses in the vase are beautiful, my mother would get upset and tell me to leave her presence; and yet, when I copied these very same flowers with colored pencils on a piece of paper, my mother would praise me and then have that piece of paper framed and placed in her bedroom.”  
  
The story had the little boy spend the summers with his great-grandmother – even though, or perhaps because, his father had disliked the strange woman almost as much as he disliked the strange child. The woman had seemed to the boy as old as the stars in the sky and just as marvelous. She had taught him the multiplication table and how to get the pit out of the cherry with a safety pin; she had shown him all the plants in her garden, and she had taught him which ones were for eating and which ones were for drinking, and then she had shown him how to take care of them; she had told him the legend of every constellation, the name of every bird, and the story of the Pickman family.  
  
“Now that I look back, it's clear to me that it was the story of her grandmother's grandmother – the rest of us were mere ripples on the surface of a lake of tears and tragedy.”  
  
Because before the strange little boy, there had been a strange young woman in a town called Salem who had been accused of witchcraft and hanged for it.  
  
“The family left as soon as she was buried. And our necks remained broken, until I was born with my head held high.”  
  
The strange young woman's great-great-granddaughter had told her strange little great-grandson many tales of Salem and sorcery and sin – tales about the fear that could devastate a town and about the shame that could devastate a soul. She had told the boy that shame was merely the fear of oneself, and one should never let their fear rule them.  
  
“She also taught me how to tell the difference between a man and a witch, between silly paranoia and true horror. And ever since then, I've preferred the company of witches and horrors."  
  
“'Orrors?” A confused wrinkle appeared between Wilbur's eyebrows.  
  
Pickman wondered whether he was unfamiliar with the word itself or with the context. Fish did not drown in water, cats did not trip in the dark, Whateleys did not associate magic with danger. But there was patience in Wilbur's eyes, like embers in a fireplace, and curiosity written in every line of his body. Pickman had many admirers – even among his enemies, which was a victory all by itself – but the admiration of an equal was a rarity.  
  
His every sense told him, screamed at him, warned him even, that Wilbur Whateley was his equal, if not his better (or, perhaps, his worse). In what way, Pickman was not sure – not yet, at least. But he was determined to find out, even if he had to spend the entire winter in Dunwich.  
  
“Horror, in my experience, is a sign that you have stared fear right in the face.” Pickman almost started chewing on his pencil – a childish habit that his father had been forced to break by ripping the pencil out of the boy's mouth and breaking it in front of him. “And fear, in my opinion, is the double-edged sword that mankind has wielded against the world as often as it has cut itself on its blade.”  
  
The wrinkle on between Wilbur's grew deeper, marring his otherwise smooth forehead.  
  
“Yes sayin' that... that fear helped ye?”  
  
In order to give himself time to think, Pickman began sketching Wilbur's hair, but he stopped almost immediately – the crinkly texture was rather specific and required his undivided attention. He suggested the flyaway strands that framed the almost finished face, but did not add anything else.  
  
“Fear is one of the oldest notions known to mankind – older than love, older than hate.” This was not an idea he had reached on his own, but Pickman doubted that Randolph Carter would begrudge him the plagiarism as much as he would protest the elaboration. “Fear taught mankind how to make and maintain fire. Because fire breaks darkness into shadows. Fire illuminates the unknown. If we didn't know fear, we wouldn't known anything." Briefly, he wondered if he should discuss this with Carter in his next letter – the man loved to argue through mail.  
  
Wilbur seemed to comprehend Pickman's words, but he did not seem convinced of their validity.  
  
“ _Animals_ know fear. An' yet they're nothin' like men.”  
  
“Animals _feel_ fear. They do not study it like we do.”  
  
“Is that what ye do? Study fear?”  
  
“I've found that this particular route to truth is rather scenic.”  
  
Pickman attempted a smile, but Wilbur looked away. He had been sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, but now he wrapped his arms around them and almost curled in on himself, as if protecting some vulnerable underside. His eyes went to the unreachable line of the horizon, where land and sky met in a chaste kiss.  
  
“I think fear is a chain. Holds me down. Keeps me in.”  
  
The wizard told the painter the story of a family that valued the secret wisdom more than anything – more than land, more than wealth, more than kinship.  
  
“Grampa said we came 'ere from Salem coz of the hunt, an' that we came there from England coz of the church.”  
  
The story was not rich in details, but what it lacked in explanations, it made up for in impressions. The most prominent figure was that of the grandfather – bright eyes and rough hands that showered adoration on his grandchild even as the rest of the world (because as far as little Wilbur had been concerned, Dunwich was the world and the world was Dunwich) grew to hate the boy.  
  
“Died in August – died quickly, too. 'Least 'e didn't suffer much... Didn't wanna bury 'im with the others – what ef they do somethin' to 'is grave? But then I recalled that 'e liked this spot down in the glen, by the rock falls where nobody goes. Only I can move the rocks. Grampa's gonna rest there. 'E deserves 'is rest.”  
  
Then there was the cold emptiness of a missing father and the warm hope of his return. Hope which had grown into a promise which had grown into a prediction (a lit candle by the window which sets the curtains on fire which burns down the house).  
  
“I know 'e didn't leave me, no matter what the others say. Ef 'e didn't want me, 'e wouldn't've 'ad me. An' 'e's gonna come back. All I gotta do is call 'im, an' 'e's gonna be 'ere.”  
  
And last (and the least), a mother – gentle and frail and silly, like a wild flower.  
  
“We walked together – t'was she who first brought me 'ere; but no more.”  
  
Pickman listened carefully, but not too carefully – he went back to scratching at the paper, adding an eyelash here, suggesting a shadow there. He thought about Wilbur's unknown father and the rumors that had grown around his identity – like poisonous fungi that nobody wanted to eat. He thought about the casual way people talked about it, as if the truly bizarre aspect of this vile situation were not that he was the real father of his daughter's only child, but rather that he had chosen to lie about it.

Pickman waited for Wilbur to uncurl himself before he showed him the portrait. Of course, it was far from the best he could do, even with just one pencil and many distractions, but it was still very good.  
  
Wilbur stared at his own face. His own face stared back at him.  
  
“Not what I see when I look inna mirror,” he remarked, trying to keep his voice even and failing. “Or even inna puddle.”  
  
“Of course it's not. Because this” Pickman shook the sketchbook lightly, “is what I see when I look at you.”  
  
Wilbur huffed out something that sounded very much like laughter – disbelieving, almost embarrassed laughter, but laughter nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howard: no grass on devil's hop yard  
> me: duly ignored


	6. October 16, 1924 - October 30, 1924

It was impossible for them to meet every day – Wilbur had his chores at the farm, none of which could be postponed or delegated to his mother, so the best the painter could hope for was an afternoon every now and then.  
  
"Mebbe every other day, ef I decide yer worth my while."  
  
They were talking by the well – Wilbur was drawing water with the help of a bucket and some rope. Pickman was trying to draw his attention to the maps he had remembered to bring.  
  
There was also the matter of the painter avoiding suspicion.  
  
"Ye asked a lotta questions 'bout me. Ef they see ye go through Dunwich an' head straight fer the Hop Yard, they'll put two an' two together faster than ye can say four."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Ef Mamie kicks ye out, I'm not takin' ye in."  
  
"I'll sleep on your doorstep, then."  
  
Eventually, Wilbur deigned to look over the maps. His eyes narrowed as he tried to unite his intimate and practically innate knowledge of the area with the clinical lines and impersonal dots that were supposed to represent its features.  
  
After some careful consideration, he asked for a pencil.  
  
***  
  
When looking at the Round Mountain, Pickman liked to imagine that it was a sleeping beast and that the dense forests were its matted fur. He certainly had not imagined thr paths crisscrossing its slopes – granted, they resembled goat trails more than anything, narrow and grassy as they were, climbing higher and going further into the mountain through rocks and trees.  
  
Pickman followed Wilbur as the wizard trudged onward with the confidence of a proud host. He led the painter past deep caves and clear streams, warning him against entering the former and drinking from the latter. They would rest – or rather, Pickman would rest, while Wilbur waited. In these moments, while trying to catch his breath, Pickman could swear he could sense the same smell which emanated from the Whateley farm and from the Hop Yard, albeit much weaker.  
  
There was beauty to be found here – yes, even here. Pickman had to open a third sketchbook, and its pages quickly filled up with branches and roots, mushrooms and flowers, lichen and stones, shadow and light.  
  
On their third foray, Wilbur turned to the painter with an unreadable expression on his face.  
  
"What ef I tol' ye the Round Mountain's hollow on the inside?"  
  
Pickman, who was trying to sketch the wizard's profile, wrinkled his nose at the disturbance.  
  
"I'd ask you if the hills are hollow as well."  
  
"Jus' the Hop Yard."  
  
"I figured." Pickman reached with his pencil to gently push Wilbur's face back into position. "The mountain seems to merge with them."  
  
"It does."  
  
The forays into the forests were nothing like the painter's usual rambles through abandoned buildings and forgotten graveyards, but his experience had taught him to recognize certain signs. He noticed them carved into trees – pale scars that hinted of nearby secrets. He pointed them out to Wilbur, who readily admitted to their creation.  
  
He had been older than a child and younger than a man. Nobody had known about this – neither his mother nor his grandfather.  
  
"The Aklo hides the trails."  
  
Something had happened – something unimportant, but unpleasant all the same – and Wilbur had come up with a solution.  
  
"Ef worse comes to worst, I'll stay 'ere."  
  
He did not clarify what he meant by that, and Pickman did not ask.  
  
***  
  
The southern hills were nowhere nearly as challenging as the Round Mountain or even the Hop Yard. The woodcutter roads were practically a walk in the park, and Pickman would often whistle to himself as he made his way to the bare peaks. Once he got there, he walked until he met with Wilbur as he arrived from the north – since the Bishop farm was much closer to the southern hills than the Whateley farm was.  
  
If the suffocating stillness of the mountain demanded silence and whispers, the open spaces and the fresh air of the hills coaxed them into talking. Sitting on the grass just below the top, where the slope was not too steep, the painter and the wizard would talk about everything and nothing – about people and their small minds, about ghouls and their peculiar ways, about art and about magic.  
  
"Ghouls ain't known fer their 'ospitality. Funny 'ow they took a likin' to ye."  
  
" _You_ took a liking to me."  
  
"Mebbe I'm jus' waitin' fer ye to look th'other way, so that I can kill ye more easily."  
  
"Or maybe you just like me."  
  
"Or mebbe there's somethin' special 'bout ye."  
  
"Is that why you like me?"  
  
"No, I'm sayin' that's why the ghouls like ye."  
  
"Special... in what way?"  
  
"Ye tol' me yer parents didn't like ye."  
  
"No accounting for taste, I suppose."  
  
"Nah, I mean... What ef they're not... What ef..."  
  
"What if _what_?"  
  
"Forget it. Too weird even fer me."  
  
"Maybe for you. Maybe not for me."  
  
"Ever heard of _changelin 's_?"  
  
" _Changelings_?... No. I mean, yes, I've heard of changelings. But what you're suggesting is preposterous."  
  
"It's happened, y'know."  
  
"I know. Which is precisely why I would've known if that were the case."  
  
"But that's the thing, see – ye never know. They 'afta tell ye, or ye'll never figure it out on yer own."  
  
Wilbur would sing to the skies – strange songs with strange words – and the autumn storms would keep away from Dunwich. Pickman would paint the bruise-violet of the clouds and the stark-white of the lightnings as they observed the raging battle in the far west from their sunlit hill.  
  
Pickman finally grew bold enough to ask Wilbur to let down his hair. Free from their braid, the heavy curls would blow in the wind like flags when Wilbur was sitting up, or sprawl on the ground like ivy when Wilbur was lying down. The exact shapes were almost impossible to capture on paper, but the impressions stayed with the painter, and perhaps that was more than enough.  
  
***  
  
During the (blessedly, luckily, thankfully) few Wilbur-less days, Pickman went back to drawing Dunwich – the old houses, the neglected gardens, the sullen people. If his absences were noted, nobody commented on them, so he felt little need to explain himself. Still, he started showing panoramic views from the hill-tops to Mamie Bishop and Earl Sawyer, much to the woman's delight and the man's entertainment, and even to the loungers in Osborn's store whenever he went into the village to purchase food.  
  
Occassionally, someone would ask to have their portrait drawn and Pickman would always comply. His price was either a bottle of cider or a box of wafers. He always made two portraits – one for the model and one for his personal collection. When questioned, he would explain:  
  
"I like to remember the people who pose for me with something other than my belly."  
  
He made sure to pay his respects to the local graveyard, though it did not offer anything other than plain headstones, familiar names and forgotten dates. Pickman rubbed several inscriptions, though more out of habit rather than actual interest. Occasionally, an engraved flower would catch his eye – those usually belonged to women who had died young.  
  
It took him several hours, but Pickman eventually found the grave of one John Whateley – the wizard who had kept nightgaunts as his familiars. Someone had attempted to scratch out his name before getting either caught or bored.  
  
***  
  
It was almost as warm as it had been when they ran into each other by the water-mill. In an attempt to escape the heat, they ventured into the Cold Spring Glen, all the way down to the river. The trees that grew on its shores provided ample cover, so they settled underneath their shade.  
  
Pickman sighed with relief when his bare feet touched the icy waters. He waded through them slowly, mindful of sharp rocks and tricky currents.  
  
"I almost regret not bringing a fishing rod."  
  
Wilbur perched himself on the half-rotten trunk of some hapless tree – most likely torn out and dragged down here by the vernal floods.  
  
"Nothin' ye can catch 'ere is good fer eatin'."  
  
"Why is that?"  
  
"Somethin' wrong with the water. Most o' it comes from the Round Mountain."  
  
"What about the Miskatonic?"  
  
"There used to be a man who'd catch fish an' sell it to people, but they 'aven't seen 'im 'round in years."  
  
Pickman sat down on the sandiest and therefore softest part of the shore and began. He asked Wilbur to bend until his face almost touched the river's surface. He worked quickly, because he did not want his model to complain of backache or – even worse – boredom. The result was a surprisingly inspired sketch of Pan admiring his own reflection in the water. Wilbur's fond smirk had added an unexpected layer of meaning to the drawing – perhaps Pan was mocking Narcissus for being so sheltered and repressed? Was it the very idea of loving oneself so deeply and so desperately that entertained him? Or was it the silly boy's innocence that amused the wild god – the inability to take matters into his own hands, so to speak?  
  
The painter was almost proud when he showed his work to the wizard.  
  
The wizard looked at the paper, then at the painter, then back at the paper.  
  
"Ye know satyrs actually exists, right?"  
  
Not exactly the reaction Pickman was hoping for, but he would gladly take whatever Wilbur deigned to give him.  
  
"Yes, in distant Leng."  
  
"Leng's jus'..." A huff. As if he had more to say but did not wish to bother. "Let's jus' say they're on their own. Sure, they were like satyrs once, but a long time ago."  
  
In a flight of fancy, Pickman decided to use river water for his paint. While he soaked the brushes, he wondered aloud:  
  
"What do you mean, _like satyrs_?  
  
Wilbur got up from the trunk and sat nearby. The application of colors fascinated him, and he insisted on watching whenever possible, much to Pickman's amusement.  
  
"Like... Dreamers who choose to stay in the Dreamlands, 'cept it's the other way 'round."  
  
Pickman had never heard this comparison before, so he made sure to remember it.  
  
"And that choice offends you?"  
  
"Not what I'd choose, ef I could."  
  
It was strange, hearing Wilbur speak about the people of Leng with disdain, even though he probably had more in common with them than he did with anyone here in Dunwich.  
  
Pickman decided he was going to use the same colors for both Pan of Dunwich, as he called the concept, and the nature surrounding him – greens, blues, browns and grays.  
  
"I've also heard rumors about this town named Goatswood, in England," he remarked as he started with the shoulder – light-green where the light hit, dark-green where it did not.  
  
Wilbur tsk-ed.  
  
"They're close to the Mother, those ones. But they're even less like satyrs than the Leng folk."  
  
"The Mother?"  
  
"The one with a Thousand Young."  
  
Pickman whistled. The rumors had indeed mentioned Her, but he always hesitated to believe anything that sounded too good to be true.  
  
"Maybe I'll go there next."  
  
He was not entirely serious – mostly because his finances would not allow another trip to Europe so soon after the previous one – but Wilbur sounded serious enough for two people when he snapped:  
  
"An' mebbe I regret tellin' ye."  
  
Pickman looked up from the painting. Wilbur had turned away from him and was currently glaring at the opposite shore, as if he would very much prefer to be there instead. There was that boyish temper again – the hunched shoulders, the curled fists, the angry pout.  
  
The painter smirked, putting the paper aside before he could think better of what he was about to do – what he had wanted to do for a while now.  
  
"Why?" He poked his companion in the ribs with the clean end of the brush. "Are you jealous?"  
  
Wilbur ignored the brush, but not the question.  
  
"Never."  
  
Another poke.  
  
"I think you are."  
  
The third poke must have hurt – was, in fact, supposed to hurt – because Wilbur turned to slap away the stick and scold the painter.  
  
Pickman brushed his lips against the wizard's open mouth.  
  
Wilbur bit him.  
  
Pickman pulled away, swearing.  
  
Wilbur watched him check for blood with something akin to pleasure glowing in his eyes.  
  
"Ef I wanted to hurt ye, ye'd be missin' yer tongue already."  
  
The silence which followed should have been long and awkward, but it was neither.  
  
"What ye call satyrs are creatures jus' like the nightgaunts, 'cept they serve a different master. An' jus' like with nightgaunts, any capable wizard might call 'em over. Which is jus' as reckless an' useless, ef ye ask me..."  
  
Pickman listened as he went back to his drawing. If Wilbur wished to ignore what happened, he would try to ignore it as well.  
  
Pain bloomed in his mouth, and he tried to soothe it with what he tried to convince himself was the taste of the wizard's spit. But worse than the physical ache, there was a growing sense of loss and regret – that he would lose him after he never truly had him, that he could only keep his image but not the sound of his voice, or the flutter of his hair in the wind, or the curve of his lips when they turned up in a smile, a smile like a moon that would never grow old... These things could be captured neither with pencil nor paint, neither on paper nor (he suspected) on celluloid, and for the first time in many years Pickman felt helpless, hopeless, useless.  
  
***  
  
Time stretched into something like a private eternity – hours and days and weeks would pass for the rest of the world, but not for the painter.  
  
And then eternity was over and all of a sudden it was October 30th.  
  
On November 1st, Thurber would return to take Pickman away from Dunwich and back to Boston.  
  
They were strolling in the southern fields, much too close to the Bishop farm for Wilbur's comfort, but Pickman had insisted. Apparently, the remains of the original Bishop house were in proximity, and Pickman wanted to see if he could make something out of them. Silas had mentioned that the house has been built in the XVII century, only to be abandoned some fifty years later after a familial dispute – the first of many, as Mamie had remarked when Pickman asked her later that evening.  
  
The painter was thinking about the chimney that was supposedly still standing, while also wondering how to broach the subject of his impending departure, when Wilbur's question startled him back into the here and now.  
  
"The hell's wrong with ye?"  
  
The truth tore out of him like a frightened rabbit.  
  
"I'm leaving the day after tomorrow."  
  
Both stopped walking, even though neither was tired. Pickman tried to look Wilbur in the eyes, but discovered that it was easier to gaze forward. There was a cluster of trees in the middle of the field – perhaps a mark of some kind?  
  
"I made the arrangement when I arrived here."  
  
He heard Wilbur sigh – in relief or in disappointment?  
  
"Ye gotta do what ye gotta do."  
  
Pickman forced himself to look away from the stupid trees and back to the wizard. It struck him, once again, how tall Wilbur was next to him, how dark among the pale grass, how strange amidst the natural world.  
  
"If you ask me, I will stay," he said.  
  
Wilbur shook his head. The hair was back in its braid, and yet Pickman could not bring himself to hate it.  
  
"I won't ask ye." Then he added – quietly, as if he were talking to himself, "Can't ask anyone to stay 'ere."  
  
Pickman opened his mouth to say something, but Wilbur continued:  
  
"Meet me t'morrow by the water-mill. Bring yer best paint."  
  
Pickman closed his mouth and said nothing; he could only nod his agreement.  
  
"Now let's go find yer damn chimney."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the rumors are true! i AM a soft cheese who lives for sappy drama!


	7. October 31, 1924

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw the chapter that was the main reason you wrote the previous six turns out to be the shortest ToT 
> 
> next time i will just add a sex scene before i can think better of it

A coverlet of clouds, fat with rain and gray with thunder, covered the skies and rendered the ravine almost as dark as a tunnel. Wilbur was already there when Pickman arrived, sweaty and swearing, with an easel and a canvas.  
  
“This will take longer than before,” the painter warned as he set up his tools by the mill, where a feeble ray of light fell on the abandoned construction. “And if turns out well, it's only because I can probably draw you with my eyes closed by now.”  
  
The wizard did not reply – in fact, the only sign that he even noticed Pickman was a glance in his general direction, before resuming his glaring at the falls, as if their glistening waters had somehow offended him. He remained as silent and still as the boulder he was sitting on; only when Pickman started fiddling with his satchel, taking out jar after jar, did Wilbur get up – slowly, as if his limbs refused to move and he had to force them to obey. He took off his long coat and folded it with somewhat distracted care, before dropping it on the mossy ground.  
  
“Ye think my grandfather made me,” he said – or rather, challenged.  
  
Pickman almost dropped the jar of green paint he was holding. He had not forgotten that particular piece of village gossip, but he had buried it in the farthest corner of his mind, along with his father's dogwood cane and his mother's conditional smiles.  
  
“Everyone here thinks so,” he attempted – or rather, admitted. “Personally, I could not care less, but...”  
  
Wilbur began undoing his belt with clumsy fingers.  
  
“I can't tell ye who my father is...”  
  
The belt fell on top of the coat.  
  
“... but I can show ye.”  
  
The shoes had probably been unlaced before Pickman's arrival, because he simply toed them off... with appendages that did not resemble any toes the painter had ever seen. The loose shirt and the roomy trousers followed the belt, each folded in a neat square.  
  
Pickman's eyes devoured every bit of flesh that revealed itself before them – the scaly chest, the spotted back, the writhing cascade of tentacles, the strange angles of the legs, the familiar shape of the tail. In the end, when the creature known as the wizard Wilbur Whateley stood naked before him, the painter could only sigh.  
  
“I knew it,” he whispered. “I knew you were special.”  
  
The creature shook its head, the otherworldly quality of its features now more obvious than ever. If it had been uncertain about Pickman's reaction to the revelation, its expression betrayed nothing – no relief, no vanity... nothing.  
  
“I'm gonna bathe now. Ye've till I’m done.”  
  
Pickman would not have become who he was, had he not tempered the iron of his will with the scorching heat of hazard and the cold touch of shock. He immediately set to work. It was not the most complicated sketch he had ever produced (that would be the exhausting “The Subway Accident”), but it was undoubtedly the most important (including even the memorable “Holmes, Lowell, and Longfellow Lie Buried in Mount Auburn”) – because in almost all other cases, he had pursued truth like a hunter chasing game, but here and now, truth had come to him on its own volition.  
  
If the painter was fast, the creature was slow. It took its time washing every part of its body, the motions as repetitive as they were intriguing – the back required thorough scrubbing but the chest needed a mere wipe; the tentacles on the abdomen had to be combed through, just like the hair on the head; the tail was revealed to be either a secondary mouth or something akin to an elephant's trunk, as it helped by filling up on water and regurgitating it wherever necessary.  
  
After half an hour (or half a century), the creature got out of the water and sat back on the boulder to dry. That took about fifteen minutes (or fifteen years). Then it put its clothes back on. And suddenly, it was Wilbur Whateley again.  
  
“Ye done?”  
  
Pickman waved at him to come and see for himself.  
  
The portrait was both rough and right – the details were crude, but correct; the colors were slathered on, yet accurate. It depicted a chimera in the middle of its bath. It bent slightly forward to cup water into its palms. The tail was almost half-submerged, but the tentacles were in full view. The textures of his chest and back were shown, as well as their meeting and merging at the side of the torso.  
  
Wilbur stared at the canvas for an entire minute (or an entire eon).  
  
“Yup, it's me.”  
  
Pickman let out a breath he had been painfully aware of holding.  
  
Wilbur laughed at his relief, as if this were a prank and the painter had fallen for it.  
  
“I knew ye could handle it.”  
  
Pickman bristled at the compliment.  
  
“And what if I didn't?”  
  
Wilbur shrugged, remnants of laughter still glowing in his eyes.  
  
“I'd've killed ye.”  
  
And just like that, they were back to the beginning – except Wilbur was laughing instead of just smirking, and Pickman had paint on his shirt instead of a pencil in his hand...

... and there was a dark ravine instead of a sunlit hill, and a ruin instead of an altar, and no wind in Wilbur's hair, and no tomorrow.  
  
They gathered the jars and washed the brushes before sitting down on a patch of soft moss to watch the painting dry. Or rather, Wilbur watched it dry, while Pickman watched Wilbur.  
  
“I mean it. It's good. Yer good.”  
  
The proportions of his face – the size of his eyes, the shape of his ears, the texture of his skin... his mask was almost perfect, and Pickman could not hate him for being able to hide so well. If someone like him – a damn painter – could sense there was something more...  
  
“It would've been even better if I had more time.”  
  
“But ye don't.”  
  
“No, we don't.”  
  
The patch of sky that could be glimpsed above the waterfalls reminded Pickman of a bruise – purple with unshed blood. He loved that particular shade, but not right now. He had been given so much already, and he still needed more.  
  
“I have to ask...”  
  
“I don't 'afta answer.”  
  
“Are you really eleven years old?”  
  
Wilbur rolled his eyes. Pickman almost winced as he prepared for the inevitable mockery.  
  
“This planet's been spinnin' 'round the sun fer billions o' years, and it'll spin fer billions o' years more. I could die t'morrow, an' I'll still be older than it'll ever be.”  
  
“ _Yes_ or _no_ would suffice.”  
  
“I've been... _'ere_... fer eleven years. So it's both yes _an'_ no."  
  
When one rushed down the stairs and missed a step, even if they did not fall on their face, that one second of terror always soured their relief. Despite his fascination with everything terrifying, Pickman had his limits.  
  
“I want you to know that I did not believe that for a second, otherwise I would've never tried to...”  
  
“Ye thought that nobody in Dunwich could count to twen'y?”  
  
Pickman coughed, even though his throat was perfectly fine.  
  
“So your father is...”  
  
“... not from 'round 'ere.”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
Wind howled somewhere beyond the ravine, its breath sending a shiver across the forests. The air filled with their distant screams. Now that he was finally at peace – or, perhaps, finally resigned – Pickman realized how cold it was. He rubbed his hands together to warm them up.

“If you ever decide to come to Boston...”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I'm just saying...”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
“Yer not gonna stay there anyway.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Ef I tol' ye, ye wouldn't believe me.”  
  
“Try me.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Pickman nudged Wilbur with his elbow. All he got for his efforts was a smile, which was better than nothing. Because there was truly nothing left to be said – at least not now, what with the inevitable thunderstorm and the impending arrival of a certain automobile.  
  
“I gotta go.”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
“Busy day ahead.”  
  
“Right. Hallowe'en.”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
Any other time, the painter would have pestered the wizard for details, but he had something else in mind.  
  
“If I ever decide to write you a letter...”  
  
“... I might decide to write ye back.”  
  
Pickman grinned.  
  
They rose to their feet wordlessly, almost simultaneously. Wilbur threw one last look at the portrait, before turning his back on it with the finality of a man closing a book.  
  
“Promise me one thin'.”  
  
“Anything.”  
  
“Don't tell 'em this is real. Tell 'em ye made me up.”  
  
“I promise.”  
  
They shook hands. Pickman noticed the awkward grip and wondered if Wilbur had ever shaken hands with anyone before... and if he will ever shake hands with anyone after.  
  
***  
  
Pickman wrapped the portrait in paper before heading back to the Bishop farm. The roads should have been empty, especially just before a storm, but he could not risk it.  
  
It started raining as soon as he left the water-mill, so he took off his coat and wrapped it around the parcel. He considered going back to the ravine, where he could find some semblance of shelter underneath the trees, but he found himself unable to even turn around.  
  
There was nothing left for him there. Nothing and nobody.  
  
He was soaked to the bone when he finally got to the farm. Mamie scolded him even as she helped with the easel, while Earl lit the tiny fireplace in the painter's room.  
  
Once he was alone, Pickman changed into dry clothes and hung the wet garments as well as he could on the easel. As he brushed the water out of his hair, he wondered if Wilbur was doing the same in his own room. Or perhaps he was headed straight for the Hop Yard – for the altar on Sentinel Hill. Pickman tried to remember what the loungers in Osborn's store had told him about that place – tales of blazing fire and underground rumble, sacrificial animals and eldritch incantations. He wondered if Wilbur would stand before the altar as he had stood before the easel, or if he would dance and sing and laugh and scream.  
  
His hosts bothered him twice – Mamie with a pot of warm milk, Earl with extra firewood. Pickman had already paid half the amount they had agreed on, but gestures of this sort deserved at least another dollar or two, on top of what he still owed them.  
  
He was sufficiently warm, both inside and out, and yet there was a shard of ice stuck in his heart – was it a remnant of today's shocking revelation, or the seed of some future anxiety? Regardless, he knew its source (and potential solution). He propped the door with the only chair, just in case, and finally freed the portrait from the paper wrappings. He gazed at it – at the smudges of paint and the truth they depicted.  
  
It was more than he had bargained for.  
  
It was more than he had dreamed of.  
  
Outside, thunderbolts tore the sky in half. Their light broke the window and rushed into the room. It scorched the dark thoughts that had been festering inside Pickman's head. The following thunder startled him out of his trance.

He grabbed the canvas and shoved it into the fireplace. Flames licked at its sides, as if tasting the wood, before engulfing it.  
  
He watched it burn – the most incredible sight he had ever witnessed, the most unbelievable truth he had ever captured, the most precious secret he had ever revealed. It would remain in his head, always and forever, but the proof of it was gone. Should he go mad in a year or in a decade, as his enemies hoped and predicted, he would have nothing left to remind him that he had seen it well enough and watched it long enough to paint a picture.  
  
He watched it burn, and he waited for regret to choke him, but all he could feel was peace.  
  
Wilbur Whateley had shared himself with the painter.

And Pickman refused to share Wilbur Whateley with the world.

It was more than he had promised.

But it was exactly what his friend deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> squidward_kissing_paper.gif
> 
> the deed is done.
> 
> also! expect a oneshot from lavinia's pov, as mrs. whateley-sothoth has opinions on this.


End file.
